As we think through how to best support these needs, I’m wondering about a couple of options:
a) Each configuration would have an option to store its own local FRT book, which might initially be copied from Paratext’s FRT book, and be config-specific - thus removing the need to keep changing the FRT file in Paratext for each different config you print from. The advantage of this approach is that it is simple to implement, and you’ll get exactly what you’ve specified in the local FRT specification. The disadvantages of this approach are:
- It quickly becomes difficult to maintain consistency across different books as the local FRT continues to evolve/improve with each new publication; so if you decide to change something in one, you may have to re-visit all the other saved configs to update them as well.
- Once a copy of Paratext’s FRT has been made, the original FRT in Paratext would not be updated
b) Another option is to keep using Paratext’s FRT book, but allow the configuration to change/update what is in there. Something like FRTbookchanges.txt which fills in the FRT at publishing time. So imagine a system where we have a single project-wide FRT template with some (user-defined) codes like <MainTitle>, <SubTitle>, <CopiesPrinted>
, or even something specific like <MainTitleIndonesian>
, and <MainTitleVernacular>
, and then the rest of the FRT book would contain the material that needs to be in ALL publications.
\id FRT XYZ Language Name (C) 2010-2021 Copyright Notice
\periph Title Page
\mt <MainTitleVernacular>
\mt2 <SubTitleVernacular>
\periph Publication Data
\imt <MainTitleVernacular>
\imt2 <SubTitleVernacular>
\pc <MainTitleIndonesian>
\pc <SubTitleIndonesian>
\pc Language: Wakawaka
\pc Script: Latin
\pc Copies Printed: <CopiesPrinted>
The PTXprint settings could just list the found in the FRT book and allow you to fill those in. We could get fancy and specify vernacular, regional, national, international for each of the codes, or just keep it simple as follows:
<MainTitleVernacular>Looku
<MainTitleIndonesian>LUKA
<MainTitle>Luke
<SubTitle>The Gospel of Jesus Christ by Dr Luke
<CopiesPrinted>250
The obvious advantage of this idea is that the configuration only needs to store the bare necessities (i.e. what is different for this particular publication). It would also allow you to tweak or re-arrange the layout of Paratext’s FRT book, and have all configs follow the new/updated layout. The disadvantage would be if you are trying to have different kinds of front-matter layout (say, a story-book format of a module, and an official-looking Luke+Acts publication for use in church - each of these may need a rather different FRT definition, although many elements would be similar). Another problem with this approach is that the FRT book wouldn’t work properly for Paratext (having been hijacked by PTXprint-specific codes), although some simple PrintDraftChanges.txt rules would help it work fine in Paratext.
In BOTH cases, all the usual \zimagecopyrights, \zcopyright, \zlicense kinds of codes would also work as normal. And I’m not sure if this is possible, but it would be great to be able to say things like:
\pb
\includePDF "c:\data\ForewordFromGovernor.pdf"
\pb
\ztableOfContents
\pb
What are your thoughts on the above options? Hit Reply and tell us which you prefer and WHY?